Yeah Neat ****spoilers****

Rating: Null/10 (3 June 2003)

At last, I have just seen this movie, I had been looking forward to it's release on DVD as I missed it when it was out in the cinema. Verdict, to quote Mr Costner, yeah neat.
It was certainly not the horror shocker of the year as was often billed, sadly as with most modern horror movies that give themselves this accolade, ie The Ring, Jeepers Creepers, Ghost Ship, they all fail magnificently to live up to the billing. Shame as it is still possible to make a true horror shocker, take a look at Dog Soldiers or Last Broadcast for example.
It would have been good to see a bit of the death and destruction actually happening after the first infections, unfortuneately the movie took the Reign of Fire route and concentrated on the post-apocolyptic aftermath and the plucky survivors. I'm sure the Director would come out with some intellectual arty reason for this, but I would put it either down to a lack of imagination or lack of budget, probably the latter owing to much of the money having to pay for the much hyped empty London scenes
Talking of which these scenes were quite impressive, however everything looked too clean and pristene considering the mayhem that would have happened, all we see is one upturned bus, some paper flying about and a 9/11 style lost person wall at Picadilly Circus. Hell I've seen more carnage staggering out of West End nightclubs at 6 in the morning. Still it gave the director oodles of opportunity for Product Placement.
On the whole I thought was an entertaining though flawed piece of work with a sometimes clumsy glossing over of detail, for example if blood was the means of passing on the infection, then surely hacking your buddy to death with a hatchett at close quarters would not be the most sensible of ideas.
It would have made an unmissable 4 part drama series on the BBC along the lines of the Last Train, but suffered somewhat due to the limited time-constraints of a stand alone movie.